


Sleep and the night

by WyrdeKid



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Genyatta Secret Santa Gift 2017, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 14:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13125228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WyrdeKid/pseuds/WyrdeKid
Summary: Zenyatta is Genji's teacher, and yet he still finds himself learning from him.This is a gift for Stephanie! (tumblr: grey-sentry) I hope you like it!





	Sleep and the night

One of the delightful parts of living is change. Zenyatta sought to interact with the world, to see the constant shift and rhythm of life for himself, however, it wasn’t until he invited into his life a student that the changes of the world personally included him.

One change was about the night, sleep. Before, he had never treated the night as a time very different from the day. He would merely go to his cell in the monastery, cross his legs upon the charging mat, and power off for a time. When he returned to activity, he would merely resume his daily chores and prayers, with little ceremony.

And before that turns his memories into flames, so he did not often stoke them.

He remembered when the change first began.

-

“Do you dream when you sleep?” Genji’s question, though not unwelcome, punctured what had been a long silence.

Zenyatta was surprised, not from the sudden shift, as he adjusted to sudden stimuli with little trouble, but because Genji had taken an interest in his personal life. The monk had been traveling with the troubled man for several weeks, and in that time he had spoken to him only when addressed or necessary. He had not expected here, in the quiet night of a community garden, would be the place of the first conversation between them the student had initiated.  

The question itself was a rather common one for omnics, though Zenyatta had only ever been asked it kindly by children, so he was unsure of what direction the conversation would go. Something about this realization brought some small joy to the monk, another appreciation of the new connections and experiences that can happen any and every day.

“Life is always dreaming, longing. In this way, I always dream.” It was not a reason he had given in the past, in this moment the Iris gifted him with unexpected clarity as to the nature of life.

Genji did not seem to find the revelation as enlightening as him, as the only sounds that followed were the whirrings of mechanisms in either of their bodies. Beyond that though, Zenyatta could sense the irritation and impatience that his student often felt when he imparted a new direction of perspective.

“So now I’m being punished for trying to get to know you?” His question was curt, but self-conscious as well. His shoulders tensed, and he squared his posture away from the monk.

Zenyatta’s mind buzzed with self-reflection. For a moment, he became aware of their positions from a third view. He hovered above Genji, speaking in a manner impersonal. He thought of his fellows from the monastery, of the omnics in flowing robes standing before crowds. Connections cannot be made upon a pedestal.

Zenyatta smoothly touched his feet upon the ground, trying to move quietly as he went to sit next to his student. As he looked over at the side view of his visor, the sudden shift of perspective was a thing of awe to him. The joy of looking forward rather than down was striking.

“I regret my words.”

Genji now turned his head slightly, but his visor made it impossible to track his gaze. He was silent.

Zenyatta continued. “I did not appreciate the connection you hoped to make.”

More silence.

“In truth, I have never before considered a charge cycle sleep, and I have no conscious memory consolidation during this time. In this way, your question is one foreign to my world.”

Genji was still, seemingly processing the statement. Carefully, he repositioned himself, not to face Zenyatta, but still less closed off. He kicked his foot out forward, landing it on a straight row of brick separating different flowers, and lazily dragged it back on his heel.

“So what, it’s just on/off? Nothing in-between?” His old tone of conversational curiosity returned, if a bit more reserved towards the beginning.

Zenyatta was glad he had mended at least a part of the rift between them, but all the same, he ran again into the problem of Genji’s valuable questioning being too specific to properly answer.

“Regrettably, my student, we seem to tread once again on uncommon grounds. Within the cycle, there is awareness, but it is not the same as what I experience now, speaking with you. It is a feeling I don’t believe can be expressed in our common words.”

Zenyatta hoped his response had been grounded enough for his student. He noticed the irony in his ability to read and understand a person’s heart and know how to heal, and yet operating within the same person’s expectations was a trying task. However, he knew above this that both disciplines were of an equal and great worth.

Genji shook his head, exhaling what could have been a laugh. “That’s everything these days it seems.”

It was clear to the monk that his student’s response wasn’t from a place of anger with him, but a frustration with life. If left unchecked, this feeling would splinter inside him, and the shards would trouble him for days.

“Perhaps you could teach me how you feel?” He posed this suggestion seriously, but with a light tone, wishing to help Genji cheer up.

Genji turned his head toward Zenyatta, facing him directly for the first time in the conversation.

“How I feel about what?”

“Sleep! What you feel about it, what it is like, anything you may wish to share.” He spoke more brightly now, swept up in the amusement of the proposal.

The student sat still a moment, then shrugged. “Sure.” He scratched his helmet thoughtfully. “Alright, first, lay back.” Genji demonstrated by folding his arms behind his head and reclining to a resting position on a stone walkway.

The monk followed suit.

“Now, try to relax. Not like meditating, just… let go a bit. Don’t really try to do anything.”

Zenyatta puzzled over these instructions. “Genji, I do believe if you don’t find this meditation, I have so far failed you as a teacher.”

His comment actually drew a chuckle from his serious student. “Maybe you need me to be the teacher, every now and then.”

“No one has ever finished learning.” He supplied, a smile in his voice.

A silence followed, but not an uncomfortable one. Genji spoke. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

-

Being around Genji was not as it once was. It was especially in these moments of still calm, when the quiet of the world wrapped around them, that Zenyatta felt the change. To his left, his student sat in the lotus position, readying himself for charge and sleep. Zenyatta thought of his usual nightly tradition, beginning his charging as Genji drifted off, then waking and pursuing any number of activities during the alone time. His student’s mind was still very human, and though he could survive on a few hours of sleep a night, Zenyatta encouraged him to attempt more than that. He often filled this alone time with activities familiar to him from the monastery, just the other night he had polished the floors of the home they were staying in, to the great appreciation of their hosts. But tonight, he found that he did not want to maintain this routine, and the confliction burdened him. It was not for a lack of work to be done, only looking around the small guest room he saw several tasks he could easily complete, but it was because of a longing that filled his soul.

“Would you care to share your troubles, master?” Genji nodded towards the floor.

Zenyatta looked down, surprised to see that in his contemplations, his meditation had been unfocused, and several orbs had drifted to the ground.

“Hmm-“ he willed them up and began floating them once again tightly around his neck “- I really must be more attentive.” It wasn’t until he saw his student’s body language, head cocked and elbows squared slightly, did he realize that not only was he attempting an excuse, but a bad one.

He chuckled once. “Very well Genji, as you have shared so much with me, who am I to keep my troubled musings a secret from you.” He stopped speaking and regulated an undulating orbit for the orbs to calm himself and ready his words. “I have begun to feel a shift between us, change in the way our worlds interplay. When I am gone from you, I often long to be closer, and when you sleep, it is as though you are away.”

Zenyatta worried this had been too much, Genji had agreed to follow him as a student, someone hurt in need of healing, lost in need of guidance. He worried not only about burdening Genji’s confused feelings with his own, but of seeming himself too in the dark to illuminate any path. Above these worries though, he felt his student deserved the respect of honesty.

“You arise many hours before I do, don’t you?” Genji asked, clearly still going over his master’s words. The monk nodded in response, so he continued. “I have an idea.”

Genji uncrossed his legs from the lotus position and got up to walk to the guest room’s small bed. He sat down and patted the side, which Zenyatta took as a signal to float over and touch down next to him. Genji then laid down on top of the blanket, resting his head on the pillow.

“Join me like this.”

Zenyatta hesitated, feeling unsure as to what his student expected or what he interpreted from his words.

“Trust me.” Genji encouraged kindly, seeming to have caught on to his master’s hesitation.

This time, he followed Genji’s example and laid down next to him. They laid like that a few seconds, inches apart, looking at each other and reading everything in the other’s expressionless face. Genji took his hand and held it.

“Does this help master?”

Zenyatta could hear the comfortable smile that was sure to be on his student’s face. Once again, Genji had shown a wisdom Zenyatta had needed. All his old worries drifted away, and he found himself submerged in the eternity of this, this moment, this feeling. And it only had to be this, being near each other, hands clasped together, it was bliss.

To answer, Zenyatta squeezed Genji’s hand affirmingly.

-

Student and master had become formalities, an old token of a new beginning. Now, they were travelers, both seeking and learning and teaching and growing. And the bond between them had changed and grown in its own ways, affirmations of which dotted their lives like blossoms.

Now, as they lay on a bottom bunk in the communal room of the hostel where they currently rooted, they both readied to sleep. Zenyatta pondered this, he thought of a time when the night and the day were changes as dictative as the changing of the breeze, when all that came was maintenance and work. Here, now, he found himself in the embrace of one of the most incredible people he’d ever met, the man he loved. As he settled in for the night, head pressed against the glowing center point of his love’s chest, he thought of what a new experience this was in his life. He thanked the Iris for the new. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Genyatta Holidays!


End file.
